Lord Shaftesbury [Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury]

Anthony Ashley Cooper, the third Earl of Shaftesbury, lived from 1671
to 1713. He was one of the most important philosophers of his day, and
exerted an enormous influence on European thought throughout the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Shaftesbury received less
attention in the twentieth century, but in the twenty-first century
there has been a significant increase in scholarship on his work.

Shaftesbury believed that humans are designed to appreciate order and
harmony, and that proper appreciation of order and harmony is the
basis of correct judgments about morality, beauty, and religion. He
was at the forefront of developing the idea of a moral sense, of
explicating aesthetic experience, of defending political liberty and
tolerance, and of arguing for religious belief based on reason and
observation rather than revelation or scripture. Shaftesbury thought
the purpose of philosophy was to help enable people to live better
lives. Towards that end, he aimed to write persuasively and for the
educated populace as a whole, deploying a wide variety of styles and
literary forms.

1. Introduction

1.1 Life and works

Shaftesbury lived from 1671 to 1713. His grandfather, the first Earl
of Shaftesbury, oversaw Shaftesbury’s early upbringing and put
John Locke in charge of his education. Shaftesbury would eventually
come to disagree with many aspects of Locke’s philosophy, but
Locke was clearly a crucially important influence on
Shaftesbury’s philosophical development, and the two remained
friends until Locke’s death. Shaftesbury served in Parliament
and the House of Lords, but ill health curtailed his political career
when he was 30 years old. From then on, he concentrated his energies
on his philosophical and literary writings. (The standard biography of
Shaftesbury is Voitle 1984).

The first work Shaftesbury published was an edited collection of
sermons by Benjamin Whichcote, in 1698. Shaftesbury wrote an unsigned
preface to the sermons in which he praised Whichcote’s belief in
the goodness of human beings and urged his readers to use
Whichcote’s “good nature” as an antidote to the
poisonous egoism of Hobbes and the pessimistic supralapsarianism of
the Calvinists.

In 1699, John Toland published an early version of Shaftesbury’s
Inquiry concerning Virtue or Merit. Shaftesbury renounced
this version of the Inquiry, claiming that it was produced
without his authorization, although the details of the episode are
unclear.

Most of the works for which Shaftesbury is famous were written between
1705–1710. It was during this period that he rewrote the
Inquiry concerning Virtue or Merit and completed versions of
A Letter concerning Enthusiasm, Sensus Communis: An Essay
on the Freedom of Wit and Humour, The Moralists, and
Soliloquy, or Advice to an Author.

In 1711, Shaftesbury collected his mature works into a single volume
and added to them extensive notes and commentary, naming the book
Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times. He revised
Characteristicks over the course of the next two years, up
until his death in 1713, and a version with his final changes appeared
in 1714.

There have been three recent editions of Characteristicks: a
single volume edited and with an introduction and scholarly apparatus
by Klein (1999), with modernized spelling and punctuation; two volumes
edited and with an introduction and scholarly apparatus by Ayers
(1999), with original typography; and three volumes with an
introduction by Den Uyl (2001), with original typography. In this
entry, I will refer (as ‘C’) to the online-accessible
version of Den Uyl’s Liberty Fund edition, citing the volume and
original page numbers.

Not all of Shaftesbury’s writings are collected in
Characteristicks. Some, such as Second Characters,
he intended to publish but did not complete. Others, such as The
Adept Ladies, he may have circulated privately but decided not to
publish. Still others, such as Askemata, he might have
written for personal or therapeutic purposes rather than for public
consumption. The most comprehensive collection of Shaftesbury’s
published and unpublished writings is the Standard Edition:
Complete Works, Correspondence and Posthumous Writings, edited by
Wolfram Benda et al. (1981–present).

1.2 Purpose and form of philosophy

According to Shaftesbury, the purpose of philosophy is to make us
better people. Philosophy’s job is to help us to improve
ourselves—help us “so regulate our governing Fancys,
Passions, and Humours” (C 1.283)—so that we can become
wiser, more virtuous, and more organized selves. Philosophy is
“Mastership in Life and
Manners”
(C 3.159; see also 3.303). As Rivers
puts it, philosophy for Shaftesbury is “the art of learning to
live well” (Rivers 2000a: 87; see Klein 1994: 82). Or as Den Uyl
says, Shaftesbury’s “main purpose [is] to encourage,
promote, or otherwise foster an environment conducive to the exercise
of virtue” (Den Uyl 1998: 282).

Shaftesbury’s belief in the fundamentally
“self-improving” (C 2.427) purpose of philosophy leads him
to criticize the turgid, analytic methods of the Scholastics and of
modern thinkers such as Descartes and Locke (Schneewind 1998: 307 and
Rivers 2000a: 87). As one of his characters puts it, philosophy must
be rescued from its imprisonment in “Colleges and Cells”
where it has been immured by “Empiricks, and pedantick
Sophists” (C 2.184). To achieve its proper goals, philosophy
needs to assume guises very different from the dry, unmoving texts of
Shaftesbury’s recent predecessors.

Because he thinks that “straightforward discursive writing could
have little chances of successfully promoting virtue in a modern
context”, Shaftesbury presents his own ideas in “a
daunting array of formats” (Den Uyl 1998: 276). These formats
include: a letter to a friend, a manual for writers, an epistolary
novelistic dialogue, a series of “random”
reflections delivered without “Regularity and
Order” (C 3.8, 3.2), an argumentative inquiry, and a
witty essay that eschews “the Gravity of strict Argument”
in favor of the “way of Chat” (C 3.97).

1.3 Features of Shaftesbury interpretation

Grean claims that Shaftesbury’s forms are “determined by
the means of persuasion” more than argumentative rigor, which
poses a challenge for interpretation (Grean 1967: xviii). Carey says,
“we cannot look to his work for an argument structured by
premises and logical deductions” (Carey 2006: 106). To
complicate matters, Shaftesbury adopts different personae in different
literary performances, and there are significant interpretative
questions about the extent to which we ought to identify the views of
Shaftesbury’s first-person narrators with Shaftesbury
himself—especially when one persona explicitly distinguishes
himself from another (C 2.263 and 3.12; see Marshall 1986; Prince
1996; Chavez 2008). In addition, some commentators take
Shaftesbury’s works to be laced with self-distancing irony
(Klein 1994: 96–99; Jaffro 2008). This diversity of forms,
styles, tones, and personae makes it difficult to attribute to
Shaftesbury a single philosophical system of thought. Perhaps we ought
not to expect too much systematicity from someone who wrote:
“The most ingenious way of becoming foolish, is by a
System” (1.290).

Another noteworthy feature of Shaftesbury interpretation is his use of
illustrations. Shaftesbury worked on numerous allegorical
illustrations for the second edition of Characteristics,
putting tremendous effort into both the overall plan and the minute
details of these illustrations and engaging in extensive
correspondence with the artists he hired to execute the pictures. He
seemed to want his audience to read the illustrations as carefully as
the words, their meanings (some readily apparent, others subtle to the
point of hiddenness) essential to a full understanding of the text.
(The fullest discussion of the illustrations is Paknadel 1974. Rivers
2000a and Müller 2010, 2012, and 2013 also shed light on how the
illustrations interact with and enhance the message of
Shaftesbury’s text.) Shaftesbury took care, as well, to compose
the marginal headings and index to Characteristicks, and his
choices in those places can also be cited as evidence for certain
interpretative views (see Rivers 2000b).

Yet another issue in Shaftesbury interpretation is the role to give to
writings not included in Characteristicks. These include
completed works, unfinished versions of projected publications, and
correspondence. Perhaps most important in this regard are
Shaftesbury’s private notebooks, which he called
Askemata (some of which are collected in Rand’s The
Life, Unpublished Letters, and Philosophical Regimen [1900]).
Some commentaries suggest that when we take the Askemata and
other unpublished writings into account, the picture of
Shaftesbury’s thought that emerges is more Stoical than
Characteristicks on its own might have led us to believe
(Klein 1994: 60, 81–88; Rivers 2000a: 92; Taylor 1989:
251–2; Maurer and Jaffro 2012; Gatti 2014). There is a question,
however, of whether Askemata and other unpublished writings
constitute a more accurate picture of Shaftesbury’s real views,
or whether at least some of those writings should be taken to have
served private therapeutic purposes that differ from the stating of
his settled, fully considered positions. Shaftesbury has one of his
narrators in Characteristicks object to the publication of
private ruminations (1.162–4), and he himself did not intend for
Askemata ever to be published. Moreover, Jaffro has
argued that Shaftesbury thought that the private self should be
“secreted” from the public self—that there should be
a “gap” between them (Jaffro 2008: 349)—which only
complicates further the attempt to corral everything Shaftesbury wrote
into a systematic, or even fully coherent, single philosophical
position.

2. Morality

2.1 Virtue and Goodness

Shaftesbury maintains that virtue is the promotion of the good of all
humankind.

To love the Publick, to study universal Good, and to promote the
Interest of the whole World, as far as lies within our power, is
surely the Height of Goodness. (C 1.37)

The virtuous person strives to develop an “equal, just, and
universal Friendship” with humanity as a whole (C 2.242).

Shaftesbury’s view of virtue is part of his larger view of
goodness. Something is good, according to Shaftesbury, if it
contributes to the “Existence or Well-being” of the system
of which it is a part (C 2.18). Every animal is a part of its species.
So a particular animal, say a tiger, is a good member of its
species—it’s a good tiger—if it contributes to the
well-being of the tiger species as a whole. There is also “a
system of all animals”, which consists of the
“order” or “economy” of all the different
animal species (C 2.19). So a good animal is one that contributes to
the well-being of “animal Affairs” in general (C 2.19).
The system of all animals, moreover, works with the system “of
Vegetables, and all other things in this inferior World” to
constitute “one system of a Globe or Earth” (C
2.19). So something is a good earthly thing if it contributes to the
existence of earthly things in general. And the system of this earth
is itself part of a “Universal System” or
“a Systemof all Things”
(C 2.20). So to be “wholly and really”
good a thing must contribute to the good of the universe as a whole (C
2.20). This progression of ever-larger systems is a bit dazzling, and
we might wonder how we can know (or even make sense of) whether
something is contributing to the well-being of the universe as a
whole. But Shaftesbury avoids this problem by discussing in detail
only that which makes “a sensible Creature” a good member
of its species—by focusing on whether an individual creature is
promoting the well-being of its species (C 2.21). Perhaps Shaftesbury
believes that a creature that contributes to the well-being of its
species will also always contribute to the well-being of the universe
as a whole, in which case being a good member of one’s species
would be coextensive with being “wholly and really”
good.

The goodness or evilness of a sensible creature, according to
Shaftesbury, is based on the creature’s motives, and not simply
on the results of the creature’s actions (C 2.21–22). This
leads to a crucial claim: every motive to action involves affection or
passion (C 2.40–44). Reason alone cannot motivate (C
2.28–52, 77–81). Shaftesbury strongly emphasizes the
importance of motive, arguing that if creatures promote the good of
the species only because they are forced to or only because promoting
the good is a means to other ends, then they are not actually good
themselves. Creatures are good only if their motivating affections are
directed “primarily and immediately” at the good
of the species, not if the connection between their affection and the
good of the species is accidental (C 2.26).

Goodness is something that is within the reach of all sensible
creatures, not only humans but also non-human animals. A creature is
good if its affections promote the well-being of the system of which
it is a part, and non-human animals are just as capable of possessing
this type of affection as humans. “Virtue or Merit”, on
the other hand, is within the reach of “Man only”
(C 2.28), and that is because virtue or merit is tied to a special
kind of affection that only humans possess. This special kind of
affection is a second-order affection, an affection that has as its
object another affection. We humans experience these second-order
affections because we, unlike non-human animals, are conscious of our
own passions. Not only do we possess passions, but we also reflect on
or become aware of the passions we have. And when we reflect on our
own passions, we develop feelings about them. Imagine you feel the
desire to help a person in distress. In addition to simply feeling
that desire, you may also become aware that you are feeling that
desire. And when you become aware of that, you may experience a
positive feeling (or “liking”) towards your desire to
help. Or imagine you feel the desire to harm a person who has bested
you in a fair competition. In addition to simply feeling the desire to
harm, you may also become aware that you are feeling that desire. And
when you become aware of that, you may experience a negative feeling
(or “dislike”) towards your desire to harm. These are the
kinds of phenomena Shaftesbury has in mind when he writes that

the Affections of Pity, Kindness, Gratitude, and their
Contrarys, being brought into the Mind by Reflection, become Objects.
So that, by means of this reflected Sense, there arises another kind
of Affection towards those very Affections themselves, which have been
already felt, and are now become the Subject of a new Liking or
Dislike. (C 2.28)

2.2 The Moral Sense

Shaftesbury calls this capacity to feel second-order affections the
“Sense of Right and Wrong” or the “Moral
Sense” (C 2.28–36, 2.40–46, 2.51, 2.53, 2.60),
although the term is not one he emphasizes or explains in detail (see
Rivers 2000a: 124). There is little evidence that he thinks the moral
sense is a distinct psychological faculty in the way that Hutcheson
did. Nevertheless, Shaftesbury does think that the moral sense
(whether one faculty or a general disposition) is that which produces
in us feelings of “like” or “dislike” for our
own (first-order) affections. When the moral sense is operating
properly, it produces positive feelings towards affections that
promote the well-being of humanity and negative feelings towards
affections that detract from the well-being of humanity. The
second-order feelings that the moral sense produces can themselves
motivate one to action, and people are virtuous if they act from those
second-order feelings. In contrast, non-human animals, because they
lack the powers of reflection necessary for consciousness of their own
affections, do not possess a moral sense. So non-human animals are
incapable of achieving virtue (C 2.28–31).

Shaftesbury argues that because our sense of morality is a sentiment,
it can be opposed only by another sentiment, and not by reason or
belief.

Sense of Right and Wrong therefore being as natural to us as
natural Affection itself, and being a first Principle in our
Constitution and Make; there is no speculative Opinion, Persuasion or
Belief, which is capable immediatelyor directly to
exclude or destroy it… And this Affection being an original
one of earliest rise in the Soul or affectionate Part; nothing
beside contrary Affection, by frequent check and controul, can operate
upon it, so as either to diminish it in part, or destroy it in the
whole. (C 2.44).

How to interpret the moral sense is one of the most intensely debated
issues in Shaftesbury scholarship. The two main camps can be called
the constitutive interpretation and the representative
interpretation.

The constitute interpretation holds that morality is constituted by
the subjective affective responses of each human. Sidgwick is often
cited as a proponent of this interpretation. Sidgwick claims that
“Shaftesbury is the first moralist who distinctly takes
psychological experience as the basis of ethics” (Sidgwick 1902:
187) and that Shaftesbury thinks morality is based on a “sense
[that] may naturally vary from man to man as the palate does”
(Sidgwick 1902: 212–13). Sidgwick thought that this subjectivist
aspect of Shaftesbury’s view did damage to morality because it
undermined the reasons that might be given for being moral. Price
thought something similar, contending that Shaftesbury’s focus
on “affection” led to his “overlooking entirely
… the authority belonging to virtue” (Price
1769: 317). Tuveson is in the same camp, contending that
Shaftesbury’s view differed from prior versions of a moral sense
(such as Henry More’s) by eliminating the role of reason
altogether.

It is the feeling, not reason, which is the right moral judge; it is
the emotions, according to the Inquiry, which are the right
moral guide. (Tuveson 1948: 258)

In saying this, Tuveson claims that Shaftesburean moral judgments are
based on an immediate reaction—an inclining to or recoiling
from—and not on a discursively-arrived upon “opinion or
formal judgment” (Tuveson 1960: 53; see Filonowiz 1989: 192).
Tuveson also claims that Shaftesburean moral judgments do not
represent anything in mind-independent reality. According to Tuveson,
Shaftesbury thought that “that the value area of the mind must
constitute a world to itself, outside the process of cognition”
(Tuveson 1960: 54). Those in the constitutive camp may also choose to
emphasize Shaftesbury’s influence on Hutcheson and Hume, whose
sentimentalism is sometimes taken to eschew commitment to
mind-independent moral properties.

The representative interpretation holds, in contrast, that the
affective responses of Shaftesbury’s moral sense represent moral
facts or properties that exist independently of our reactions to them.
Irwin advances this view when he claims that Shaftesbury “treats
the moral sense as a sign of objective moral properties, not as their
metaphysical basis” (Irwin 2008: 369), and that the moral sense
has “an indicative (or detective) role”. According to
Irwin, Shaftesbury believes that moral properties have a
“logical independence from” our beliefs and judgments
about them (Irwin 2015: 866–7). Schneewind also believes that
Shaftesbury’s moral sense detects objective moral properties,
contending that the moral faculty

is special because through it we become aware of an objective
order… The approval and disapproval themselves are feelings,
but they reveal that the set of passions being considered either is or
is not harmonious. (Schneewind 1998: 302)

Rivers develops a similar view, arguing that our moral faculty enables
us to “recognize and respond” to the objective property of
harmony (Rivers 2000a: 143; see also 126). Those in the representative
camp may emphasize the influence on Shaftesbury of the Cambridge
Platonists, whose rationalist moral theories included a clear
commitment to the existence of moral properties independent of our
reactions (Cassirer 1953: 159–202; Gill 2006: 77–82).

The representative and constitutive camps can both cite passages that
pose interpretative challenges to the other side.

In favor of the representative interpretation and challenging for the
constitutive are claims Shaftesbury makes that seem to imply that
moral properties are independent of human reactions. He maintains, for
instance, that what is destructive of the human species can never be

Virtue of any kind, or in any sense; but must remain still
horrid Depravity, notwithstanding any Fashion, Law, Custom, or
Religion; which may be ill and vitious it-self, but can never
alter the eternal Measures, and immutable independent Nature
of Worth and Virtue. (C
2.35–36)

He also calls himself a “realist”, and seems to do so in a
way that precludes a constitutive reading (see Irwin 2015 and Carey
2006: 98–99, 130–4). As one of his characters puts it when
speaking of the author of the Inquiry:

For being, in respect of Virtue, what you
lately call’d a Realist; he endeavours to shew,
“That it is really something in it-self, and in the
nature of Things: not arbitrary or factitious, (if I may so
speak) not constituted from without, or dependent on Custom,
Fancy, or Will; not even on the Supreme
Will it-self, which can no-way govern it: but being necessarily
good, is govern’d by it, and ever uniform with it.” (C
2.267)

Shaftesbury says as well that “the principal End” of
Characteristicks is

“To assert the Reality of a Beauty and
Charm in moral as well as
natural Subjects; and to demonstrate the Reasonableness of a
proportionateTaste, and
determinateChoice, in Life
and Manners.” The Standard of
this kind, and the noted Character of MoralTruth
[are] firmly establish’d in Nature
it-self. (C 3.303; see 1.336)

Those in the representative camp can also claim support from
Shaftesbury’s comparison of virtue to beauty. Shaftesbury
contends that beauty is a mind-independent, objective property. But
since aesthetic responses are representative of mind-independent
reality, and our moral responses are similar or perhaps identical to
our aesthetic responses, it follows that our moral responses are
representative as well (Schneewind 1998: 303–4; Carey 2006: 107,
125, 132–4).

In favor of the constitutive interpretation and challenging for the
representative are statements Shaftesbury makes that seem to imply
that the basis for virtue is dependent only on human reactions and
thus insensitive to any mind-independent fact (Taylor 1989:
256–7; Den Uyl 1998: 90; Gill 2000: 538–47). He says, for
instance, that our reason to be virtuous is impervious even to the
supposition that we know nothing of the external world.

For let us carry Scepticism ever so far, let us doubt, if we
can, of every thing about us; we cannot doubt of what passes
within our-selves. Our Passions and Affections are known to
us. They are certain, whatever the Objects may be,
on which they are employ’d. Nor is it of any concern to our
Argument, how these exterior Objects stand; whether they are Realitys,
or mere Illusions; whether we wake or dream. For ill Dreams
will be equally disturbing. And a good Dream, if Life be
nothing else, will be easily and happily pass’d. In this Dream
of Life, therefore, our Demonstrations have the same force; our
Balance and Economy hold good, and our Obligation to
Virtue is in every respect the same. (C 2.173)

In a similar vein he writes,

If there be no real Amiableness or Deformity in moral Acts,
there is at least an imaginary one of full force. (C
2.43)

Commentators on either side of the representative-constitutive divide
may try to show that passages that seem troublesome for their
interpretation do not mean what the other side claims. Towards that
end, commentators may try to soft-pedal one set of Shaftesbury’s
statements, perhaps emphasizing the different purposes and different
personae in Shaftesbury’s writings, or explicating the fuller
context of various quotations in a way that reveals that Shaftesbury
is not himself endorsing certain claims but rather arguing that even
on assumptions he does not accept his main points about virtue will
still stand. Jaffro has argued that Shaftesbury consciously changed
his mind, or at least decided that he should change how to express his
views, moving from an early account that had subjectivist implications
to a later account that was more objectivist (Jaffro 2007). Another
possible response to this interpretative issue is to hold that
Shaftesbury is simply inconsistent, or that he is unaware of the
implications of some of his own claims. As Raphael puts it, “The
fact is that no coherent view can be extracted from Shaftesbury about
the moral faculty or about moral theory in general” (Raphael
1947: 17). Kivy writes,

It has been the opinion of many, from Shaftesbury’s time to our
own, that no coherent view emerges; and I am inclined, in the last
analysis, to agree. (Kivy 2003: 16)

Darwall (1995) has developed an interpretation of Shaftesbury’s
moral sense that does not fit in either the constitutive or the
representative camp. According to Darwall, Shaftesbury believes that
the normative authority of morality leads to the view that the basis
of morality is within each agent, which conflicts with interpretations
that hold that the moral sense represents something external. But
Darwall also holds that Shaftesbury believes that there is a
rationally necessary view of morality that each agent should come to,
which conflicts with interpretations that hold that the moral sense
produces subjective and contingent emotional experiences. On
Darwall’s interpretation, Shaftesbury is concerned with autonomy
and rationality in a way that warrants classifying him as a clear
precursor to Kant. Den Uyl has raised concerns about Darwall’s
interpretation by contending that the moral sense is the source of
favorable attitudes rather than the law-like rules of a proto-Kantian
rationalist (Den Uyl 1998: 304). Another objection to Darwall’s
interpretation can be found in Irwin, who claims that
Shaftesbury’s moral sense view is externalist—i.e., that
one’s moral sense produces responses that have no necessary
connection to one’s motivation or reason to act morally (Irwin
2015: 877 and 880). Darwall’s interpretation, in contrast,
requires a strongly internalist reading of Shaftesbury.

2.3 Motivation and egoism

Throughout his works, Shaftesbury attacks a view of human motivation
that he associates with Hobbesian and voluntarism. Some commentators
have thought that the view of human motivation Shaftesbury advances in
these anti-Hobbesian and anti-voluntarist passages is ardently
non-egoistic—i.e., that Shaftesbury believes that human agents
can be motivated by considerations other than self-interest (Den Uyl
1998; Schneewind 1998; Irwin 2008; Carey 2006). Other commentators
have argued that Shaftesbury himself holds an egoist view of human
motivation—that he thinks every human’s actions are
motivated by self-interested desires—and that his attacks on
Hobbes and the voluntarists are directed only at what he takes to be
an incorrect view of self-interested incentives (Sidgwick 1902; Peach
1958; Trianosky 1998; Grote 2010). Still other commentators have
claimed that Shaftesbury is inconsistent, opposing egoist views of
human motivation in some passages and assuming them in other passages
(Martineau 1886: 508; Wiley 1940: 74).

Those who interpret Shaftesbury as an anti-egoist point to passages in
which he argues that theories that rely exclusively on selfish
motivation cannot explain plainly observable human behavior. In
Wit and Humour, Shaftesbury attacks those who

wou’d new-frame the human Heart; and … reduce all its
Motions, Balances and Weights, to that one Principle and Foundation of
a cool and deliberate Selfishness. (C 1.116)

In fact, Shaftesbury argues, careful observation reveals that humans
are motivated by many non-selfish considerations.

[W]hoever looks narrowly into the Affairs of it, will find, that
Passion, Humour, Caprice, Zeal,
Faction, and a thousand other Springs, which are counter to
Self-Interest, have as considerable a part in the Movements
of this Machine. There are more Wheels and Counter-Poises in
this Engine than are easily imagin’d. ’Tis of too complex
a kind, to fall under one simple View, or be explain’d thus
briefly in a word or two. The Studiers of this Mechanism must
have a very partial Eye, to overlook all other Motions besides [selfishness]. (C 1.115)

People exhibit non-selfish “Civility,
Hospitality, Humanity towards Strangers or People in distress”
(C 1.118). Their concern for

Relations, Friends, Countrymen,
Laws, Politick Constitutions, the Beauty of
Order and Government, and the Interest of Society and
Mankind … naturally raise a stronger Affection
than any which was grounded upon the narrow bottom of mere Self.
(C 1.117)

Indeed, even those tendencies that are most destructive are usually
based in sociable, non-selfish concerns. War and social disruption are
usually caused not by selfishness but by a powerful concern for party
or clan. It is love and fellowship for those in one’s group that
lead to widespread conflict, not self-love.

In short, the very Spirit of Faction, for the greatest part,
seems to be no other than the Abuse or Irregularity of that social
Love, and common Affection, which is natural to Mankind.
For the Opposite of Sociableness is Selfishness. And
of all Characters, the thorow-selfish one is the least forward in
taking Party. (C 1.114–15)

Shaftesbury acknowledges that some have tried to show that all of
these seemingly sociable tendencies result only from “a more
deliberate, or better-regulated Self-love” (C
1.118). But he contends that such views either fail to explain what
people actually do or collapse into tautology (C 2.226–7).

Against Hobbes himself, Shaftesbury presents a pleasantly ironic
ad hominem argument. If Hobbes had truly been entirely
concerned with his own self-interest, he would never have publically
advanced the view that people are motivated entirely by self-interest.
He would, rather, have spoken “the best of human Nature”
so that he could “the easier abuse it” (C 1.94). But
Hobbes did not behave in this way. He tried to convince people of the
selfishness of human beings precisely because he wanted to help humans
beings, even though this conduct placed him at great peril. His very
advancement of the selfish thesis refutes it. That

good sociable Man, as savage and unsociable as he wou’d make
himself and all Mankind appear by his Philosophy, expos’d
himself during his Life, and took the utmost pains, that after his
Death we might be deliver’d from the occasion of these Terrors.
He did his utmost to shew us … that there was nothing which by
Nature … drew us to the Love of what was without, or beyond
our-selves: Tho the Love of such great Truths and sovereign
Maxims as he imagin’d these to be, made him the most laborious
of all Men in composing Systems of this kind for our Use; and
forc’d him, notwithstanding his natural Fear, to run continually
the highest risk of being a Martyr for our Deliverance. (C
1.89–90)

According to Shaftesbury, both Hobbes and the voluntarists believed
that the only motive humans have to be moral is that a powerful being
will reward them for virtue and punish them for vice. The
Hobbesian’s rewards and punishments are meted out by the
sovereign, the voluntarist’s by God. Were it not for this
powerful being’s rewards and punishments, according to
Shaftesbury’s understanding of Hobbesianism and the voluntarism,
humans would have no motivating reasons to be moral. In an oft-cited
letter, Shaftesbury places Locke in the same category as Hobbes and
the voluntarists, condemning the lot of them for reducing all moral
motivation to these selfish concerns. (For discussion of this letter
and Shaftesbury’s philosophical relationship to Locke, see Carey
2006: 98 and 138). Central to much of Shaftesbury’s account of
morality, in contrast, is the claim that people are virtuous only to
the extent that they are motivated by something other than selfish
concern to gain reward and avoid punishment (C 2.23, 2.25, 2.60,
2.66). According to Shaftesbury, virtue consists not in the actions
people perform, but in their motives for performing them. And the
motive with which we identify virtue is concern for humanity, not
selfishness. Shaftesbury emphasizes this point by drawing attention to
the difference between knaves and saints. In order to be motivated to
do the right thing, knaves “stand in need of such a rectifying
Object as the Gallows before their eyes”, but someone
truly honest will not have such a need.

And if a Saint had no other Virtue than what
was rais’d in him by the same Objects of Reward and Punishment,
in a more distant State; I know not whose Love or Esteem he might gain
besides, but for my own part, I shou’d never think him worthy of
mine. (C 1.127)

We judge saints to be virtuous because we think they are motivated by
something other than the selfishness of the knave. If we came to
believe that the saints were motivated by self-interest as well, we
would no longer judge them to be virtuous. As Shaftesbury puts it,

If the Love of doing good, be not, of it-self, a good and
right Inclination; I know not how there can possibly be such
a thing as Goodness or Virtue. (C 1.98)

Shaftesbury maintains, further, that stressing reward and punishment
is actually counterproductive to the promotion of virtue. This is
because a stress on reward and punishment tends to crowd out or
obliterate the intrinsic concern for the good of the species that is
essential to true virtue. He writes,

I Have known a Building, which by the Officiousness of the Workmen has
been so shor’d, and screw’d up, on the
side where they pretended it had a Leaning, that it has at last been
turn’d the contrary way, and overthrown. There has something,
perhaps, of this kind happen’d in Morals. Men have not
been contented to shew the natural Advantages of Honesty and Virtue.
They have rather lessen’d these, the better, as they thought, to
advance another Foundation. They have made Virtue so
mercenary a thing, and have talk’d so much of its
Rewards, that one can hardly tell what there is in it, after
all, which can be worth rewarding. (C 1.97; see also 2.33–34 and
39–40)

People who dwell on reward and punishment are more likely to become
overly concerned with their own “Self-good, and private
Interest”, which must “insensibly diminish the Affections
towards publick Good, or the Interest of Society and introduce a
certain Narrowness of spirit” (C 2.58). Stressing reward and
punishment cannot make people more virtuous, and it may very well make
them less so (C 1.97–98, 2.52–56). It is for this reason
that Shaftesbury has one of his characters in The Moralists
say that the author of the Inquiry

endeavors chiefly to establish Virtue on Principles, by which
he is able to argue with those who are not as yet induc’d to own
a God, or Future State. If he cannot
do thus much, he reckons he does nothing. (C 2.266–7)

In his discussions of Hobbes and the voluntarists, then, Shaftesbury
seems to be attacking the view that humans are motivated only by
self-interest and, relatedly, that self-interest is the only reason
for us to be moral. This anti-egoist reading can also point to
Shaftesbury’s aesthetic views, which center on the idea that our
love of beauty is entirely non-selfish (see Stolnitz 1961a,b,c).
Shaftesbury makes this seemingly anti-egoistic aesthetic point when he
distinguishes the entirely non-selfish appreciation of a thing’s
beauty from the self-interested desire to own or command that thing
(2.396–7).

Other commentators, however, interpret Shaftesbury egoistically, as
holding that every human action is motivated by the agent’s
desires for his or her own pleasure (Sidgwick 1902: 185; Peach 1958;
Trianosky 1978; Grote 2010). A crucial text for the egoist reading is
the beginning of Book 2 of the Inquiry, where Shaftesbury
writes

We have consider’d whatVirtueis, and to whom the Character belongs. It remains to inquiry,
What Obligation there is toVirtue;
or what Reason to embrace it. (C
2.45)

Shaftesbury goes on to argue that being moral is in every
person’s own best interests—that one will be happier if
one is virtuous rather than vicious. As he sums up his argument in the
conclusion of the Inquiry,

Thus have we endeavour’d to prove what was propos’d in the
beginning… To be wicked or vitious, is to be
miserable and unhappy… On the other side; the
Happiness and Good of Virtue has
been prov’d. (C 2.98–99)

And again:

“That to yield or consent to any thing ill or immoral, is a
Breach of Interest, and leads to the greatest Ills”: and,
“That on the other side, Every thing which is an Improvement
of Virtue, or an Establishment of right Affection and Integrity, is an
Advancement of Interest, and leads to the greatest and most solid
Happiness and Enjoyment.” (C 2.100).

This performance in the Inquiry is the basis for
interpretations that claim that Shaftesbury believes that the only
salient answer that could be given to the question, Why be moral?, is
that being moral is in one’s own self-interest—and, more
generally, that Shaftesbury thinks that self-interest is the only
ultimate reason for action.

How do egoistic interpretations handle the many texts in which
Shaftesbury attacks selfish theories of morality and human nature?
Some have come to the exasperated conclusion that Shaftesbury is
simply inconsistent, sometimes assuming egoism sometimes opposing it
(Martineau 1886: 508; Wiley 1940: 74). Others have argued that Shaftesbury’s
criticisms of selfish theories do not conflict with an overall
egoistic interpretation. Grote (2010) maintains that when Shaftesbury
attacks Hobbes, the voluntarists, and other “selfish”
theorists, he is not attacking the view that self-interest is the only
reason to be virtuous but rather is attacking the view that
externally-bestowed rewards and punishments are the only
reasons to be virtuous. According to Grote, what Shaftesbury means to
show is that virtue has decisive “natural
advantages”—that being virtuous will make one happier
regardless of what anyone else may do to you. Shaftesbury’s
opponents, on this reading, are those who claim that the relevant
self-interested considerations are the rewards and punishment meted
out by God or sovereign. The crucial contrast is between, on the one
hand, the arbitrariness of the rewards and punishments of the
voluntarist God and the Hobbesian sovereign and, on the other hand,
the naturalness of the internal mental enjoyments that come from being
virtuous—not the contrast between self-interested and
non-self-interested motives.

Such is how egoistic interpretations attempt to explain away what many
have taken to be Shaftesbury’s attacks on egoist explanations of
human behavior. How do anti-egoist interpretations attempt to explain
away the efforts Shaftesbury makes in Book 2 of the Inquiry
to show that virtue’s conduciveness to one’s own happiness
is reason to embrace it? Schneewind denies Shaftesbury ever tries
“to bribe the reader into becoming virtuous, by showing that it
pays” (Schneewind 1998: 308). According to Schneewind, in Book 2
of the Inquiry Shaftesbury is

trying to show that the natural world—the realm in which the
natural good of happiness exists—is such that it makes sense for
us to act morally within it. (Schneewind 1998: 308)

Irwin argues that virtuous Shaftesburean agents have an immediate
aversion to vice that is based on a kind of aesthetic disgust-reaction
rather than a reflective calculation about what will benefit them in
the long run (Irwin 2008: 357). But Irwin also thinks we can find in
Shaftesbury elements of a eudaimonist theory, according to which
“it is reasonable to examine the contribution of virtue to
happiness” because “the pursuit of happiness [is] the
pursuit of rational structure and harmony”—which does not
collapse into the Hobbesian egoist view that we should be virtuous
because it maximizes our pleasure (Irwin 2008: 357). Den Uyl also
locates in Shaftesbury something akin to “a classical virtue
ethics” (Den Uyl 1998: 292). And Filonowicz makes a similar
point, arguing that virtue and happiness are so closely identified in
Shaftesbury that it distorts his view to claim that we seek one as a
mere means for the other. Shaftesbury is not trying to show

that we are required to be moral by the sheer personal utility of
being so… [H]is point, rather, [is] that questions of expected
overall benefit or less will seem moot to anyone who has actually
achieved, and so experienced, moral health or harmony of affection.
Virtue is experienced as being its own reward. (Filonowicz 2008:
86)

In his Essay on the Passions, Hutcheson addresses the same
question that non-egoist interpretations of Shaftesbury must face in
light of Shaftesbury’s arguments for the coincidence of virtue
and interest—i.e., if virtue is non-self-interested, why show
that virtue is in everyone’s self-interest? Hutcheson writes,

It may perhaps seem strange, that when in this Treatise
Virtue is supposed disinterested; yet so much Pains is taken,
by a Comparison of our several Pleasures, to prove
the Pleasures of Virtue to be the greatest we are capable of,
and that consequently it is truest Interest to be
virtuous. (Hutcheson 1742: viii)

Hutcheson goes on to maintain that while virtue does consist of truly
non-selfish concern for humanity, it is still useful to show that
virtue does not conflict with happiness, as that will prevent people
from believing in a conflict between the two ends that would
constitute a great obstacle to virtue. It seems possible that
Shaftesbury was anticipating this Hutchesonian thought (a thought that
Hutcheson attributes to Shaftesbury) when arguing in Book 2 of the
Inquiry for the coincidence of virtue and happiness.

2.4 Virtue, Happiness, and the Reason to be Moral

Regardless of whether or not Shaftesbury is accurately characterized
as egoistic, he clearly does contend that virtue conduces to
one’s happiness and vice to one’s misery—that
“Virtue and Interest may be found at last to
agree” (C 2.16). And he develops a psychological explanation for
this agreement. Central to this explanation is his distinction between
pleasures of the body and pleasures of the mind. Shaftesbury argues
that a person’s happiness depends more on mental pleasures than
on bodily pleasures. He then seeks to show that living virtuously is
by far the best way to gain the crucially important mental pleasures
(C 2.47–73). Shaftesbury bases much of his argument for the
connection between virtue and happiness on the idea that the mental
pleasures are within one’s own control, insulated from the
vicissitudes of “Fortune, Age, Circumstances, and Humour”
(C 2.434). As one of Shaftesbury’s characters rhetorically asks,

How can we better praise the goodness of Providence, than in
this, ‘That it has plac’d our Happiness and Good in things
We can bestow upon ourselves’? (C 2.435; see
2.228–34)

In arguing for the importance of the mental pleasures, Shaftesbury
also develops a view of the difference between higher and lower
pleasures—and of the superiority of the former—that
clearly anticipates Mill’s use of that distinction in chapter 2
of Utilitarianism (C 2.228–34).

Much of the interpretative discussion of Shaftesbury’s response
to the question, Why be moral?, has focused on Book 2 of the
Inquiry. But Shaftesbury discusses the issue in Wit and
Humour and Soliloquy as well, asking in the later:
“Why shou’d a Man be honest in the dark?”
(C 1.125). At times Shaftesbury suggests that a person who asks this
question is already lost to virtue—that someone who cares about
virtue for its own sake won’t need another reason to act
virtuously, and that someone who needs another reason doesn’t
have what it takes to be truly virtuous in the first place. Other
times, Shaftesbury suggests that we should be honest even in the dark
(i.e., virtuous even when we will not be punished for vice) because
such conduct is a necessary condition for having an identity or
unified self at all (C 1.283–4). The importance of developing a
(unified) self is a striking, recurring theme in Shaftesbury’s
writings, and he suggests that helping one to develop such a self is
the raison d’etre of philosophy (see Mijuskovic 1971,
Winkler 2000, Purviance 2004, and Jaffro 2014). An additional response
Shaftesbury offers is to equate a commitment to morality to the love
of beauty (Brown 1995; Gill 2014). He writes,

[A] real Genius, and thorow Artist, in whatever
kind, can never, without the greatest unwillingness and shame, be
induc’d to act below his Character, and for mere Interest be
prevail’d with to prostitute his Art or Science, by performing
contrary to its known Rules… Be they ever so idle, dissolute,
or debauch’d; how regardless soever of other Rules; they abhor
any Transgression in their Art, and wou’d chuse to lose
Customers and starve, rather than by a base Compliance with the World,
to act contrary to what they call the
Justness and Truth of Work.

“Sir”, (says a poor Fellow of this kind, to his rich
Customer) “you are mistaken in coming to me, for such a piece of
Workmanship. Let who will make it for you, as you fansy; I know it to
be wrong. Whatever I have made hither to, has been true
Work. And neither for your sake or any body’s else, shall I
put my hand to any other”.

This is Virtue! real Virtue, and Love of Truth;
independent of Opinion, and above the World.
This Disposition transfer’d to the
whole of Life, perfects a Character, and makes that
Probity and Worth which the Learned are often at
such a loss to explain. For is there not a Workmanship and
a Truth in Actions? (C
1.261–2)

Here Shaftesbury points out that we readily accept the possibility of
artists remaining committed to their art, regardless of the external
rewards that may result from betraying it. We don’t think such
artists need an answer to the question, “Why produce excellent
works rather than poor ones?” because we understand their
valuing the art as an end in itself. But one’s
life—one’s character and conduct—can be, or can fail
to be, morally beautiful. And the commitment people who appreciate
moral beauty have to instantiate it can have the same force on their
conduct as an artist’s commitment to produce excellent works.
Some might think that connecting morality and beauty in this way
minimizes or undermines the importance of morality. But given
Shaftesbury’s realist view of beauty—and his equating of
beauty and truth—no such thing follows on his account.

3. Aesthetics

3.1 Beauty

Beauty, for Shaftesbury, is a kind of harmony, proportion, or order
that exists independently of human minds. The human responses that are
the origin of human judgments of beauty are not the origin of beauty
itself. As Shaftesbury writes,

Harmony is Harmony by Nature, let Men
judg ever so ridiculously of Musick. So is Symmetry and
Proportion founded still in Nature, let Mens Fancy
prove ever so barbarous, or their Fashions ever so Gothick in
their Architecture, Sculpture, or whatever other designing Art. (C
1.216)

That there is a real standard of beauty—i.e., a standard with a
real existence independent of human minds—is one of the central
ideas of Shaftesbury’s thought as a whole. He writes, “It
has been the main Scope and principal End” of
Characteristicks is to “assert the Reality of a Beauty
and Charm in
moral as well as natural Subjects” (C
3.303).

Shaftesbury places all beauty in a three-part hierarchy. The lowest
order of beauty belongs to “the dead
Forms”—physical things such as manmade works of art
and natural objects (C 2.406). The second order of beauty belongs to
human minds, or “the Forms which form, that is, which
have Intelligence, Action, and Operation” (C 2.406). The third
order of beauty belongs to that “which forms not only such as we
call mere Forms, but even the Forms which form” (C
2.408). This highest, most supreme and sovereign beauty, belongs to
God, who has created everything in the world, including human minds
(see Kivy 2003: 12; Den Uyl 1998: 294).

Shaftesbury discusses the beauty of literature, music, and painting.
He takes the primary instances of physical beauty to be landscapes and
other features of the natural world. Shaftesbury’s characters in
The Moralists discuss the beauty of gardens, arguing for the
superiority of naturalness or wildness over the artifice of formal
gardens (C 2.393–4). For discussion of Shaftesbury’s views
of gardening and their influences, see Leatherbarrow (1984), Liu
(2008), and Fleming (2014).

Theocles, Shaftesbury’s main character in The
Moralists, says that ‘beauty’ and ‘good’
are “one and the same” (C 2.399) and that
“there is no real Good beside the Enjoyment of
Beauty” (C 2.422). In the Miscellaneous
Reflections, Shaftesbury says that

what is beautiful is harmonious and
proportionable; what is harmonious and proportionable, is
true; and what is at once both
beautiful and true, is, of consequence,
agreeable and good[.] (C 3.183)

Darwall has suggested that for Shaftesbury “moral goodness is a
species of beauty” (Darwall 1995: 185). Den Uyl has argued
against this interpretation, claiming instead that Shaftesbury meant
to assert that beauty and goodness were truly one and the same thing,
both constituted by the very same property of order and harmony (Den
Uyl 1998: 296; see also Stolnitz 1961a: 103). Rivers thinks
Shaftesbury was ambivalent

about using the language of aesthetics to discuss ethics. In some
places it seems that he is drawing an analogy purely for rhetorical
purposes between art and morals, in others that he really means that
the beautiful is the good. (Rivers 2000a: 143)

3.2 Aesthetic Experience

Aesthetic responses, for Shaftesbury, involve some kind of affective
reaction, but there is interpretative disagreement about the extent to
which that affective reaction is immediate or reflective. In some
passages, Shaftesbury seems to suggest that our sense of beauty
operates immediately, like our sensations of color.

No sooner the Eye opens upon Figures, the Ear to
Sounds, than straight the Beautiful results, and
Grace and Harmony are known and acknowledg’d.
(C 2.414)

The Shapes, Motions, Colours, and Proportions of [Bodys, or
the common Subjects of Sense] being presented to our Eye;
there necessarily results a Beauty or Deformity, according to the
different Measure, Arrangement and Disposition of their several Parts.
(C 2.28–9; see also 2.285)

Stolnitz takes these passages to show that for Shaftesbury
“Aesthetic response is ‘immediate,’ in the sense
that it takes place without discursive reflection” (Stolnitz
1961b: 198; see also 1961a: 112). In other passages, however,
Shaftesbury emphasizes the need for extensive cultivation and
reflection in order to pass accurate aesthetic judgment.

Taste or Judgment … can hardly
come ready form’d with us into the World… Use, Practice
and Culture must precede the Understanding and Wit
of such an advanc’d Size and Growth as this. A legitimate and
just Taste can neither be begotten, made,
conceiv’d, or produc’d, without the antecedent
Labour and Pains of Criticism.
(C 3.164)

Shaftesbury goes on to offer an extensive defense of critics,
maintaining that the kind of discursive attention they give to art is
necessary for artistic improvement and full appreciation (C
3.165–9). Such passages have led other commentators to conclude
that correct aesthetic taste for Shaftesbury requires well-cultivated
reflective, discursive abilities (Rivers 2000a: 126–9; Darwall
1995: 186; Townsend 1982: 210–12).

Shaftesbury clearly distinguishes between a person’s
appreciating the beauty of an object and a person’s appreciating
the benefits an object can produce for him or herself. He writes, for
instance, of the obvious difference between the enjoyment of the
beauty of an ocean or landscape, on the one hand, and the desire to
command these things and gain advantage from them, on the other (C
2.396–7). He also contends that the pleasure we experience when
coming to appreciate beauty is

of a kind which relates not in the least to any private
Interest…, nor has for its Object any Self-good or Advantage of
the private System. The Admiration, Joy, or Love, turns wholly upon
what is exterior, and foreign to our-selves. (C 2.104)

A person who is truly responding to beauty does not consider the
desirable consequences that may be associated with a beautiful object
but rather responds favorably to the object “for its own
sake” (C 2.59), based purely on “the Excellence of the
Object” (C 2.273). Such a person’s response is not
sensitive to external circumstances but results merely from
“seeing and admiring” (C 2.43).

On the basis of these passages, Stolnitz argues that Shaftesbury lays
the groundwork for the idea that aesthetic responses are essentially
“disinterested” (Stolnitz 1961a,b,c; see also Glauser 2002
and Savile 2002.) According to this idea, which Stolnitz takes to be
the defining feature of modern aesthetic theory, an aesthetic response
is a response solely to the intrinsic features of an object,
independent of any other type of consideration, such as the
object’s utility to the perceiver or to society, its moral
value, or its capacity to increase knowledge. Aesthetics, on this
view, is autonomous, self-contained, impersonal, non-instrumental.
Stolnitz is careful (in a way that some of his critics have failed to
note) not to claim that Shaftesbury himself held exactly this
aesthetic view. What Stolnitz claims, rather, is that
Shaftesbury’s distinguishing of perceptions of beauty and
judgments of self-interest was a crucial influence on the
disinterested aesthetic views that would come later, even if
Shaftesbury himself also held views that did not fit with those later
views (Stolnitz 1961a: 100 and 108).

Townsend, Rind, and Mortensen have argued against the view that
Shaftesbury advances the notion of aesthetic disinterestedness. On
their view, Shaftesbury intends to contrast an appreciation of an
object’s beauty only with certain vicious or selfish concerns,
not with all non-aesthetic considerations whatsoever. An appreciation
of beauty, on this reading of Shaftesbury, is “not to be
identified with luxury, covetousness, avarice, ostentation, and
similar … immoral qualities” (Mortensen 1994: 637; see
also Rind 2002: 72–3). But an appreciation of beauty can and
should involve consideration of virtue and the improvement of moral
character. As Townsend puts it, Shaftesbury does not ever truly give

disinterestedness a special significance. It is not really proposed as
any kind of test, nor does it characterize a special class of
perceptions or judgments. It is much more important to Shaftesbury to
determine what our true interests are. (Townsend 1982: 211)

Mortensen argues that Shaftesbury’s central concern with regard
to art was to show that contemplation of art serves a proper moral
purpose. According to Mortensen, Shaftesbury’s goal is to
establish that proper artistic contemplation improves one’s
moral character.

3.3 Beauty, Virtue, and Good Taste

Whatever the best interpretation may be of Shaftesbury’s view of
aesthetic responses, Mortensen does marshal plentiful evidence that
one of Shaftesbury’s chief goals was to advance a concept of
good “taste” that would improve the moral character of
British gentlemen. Klein (1994) expands on this idea, showing how
Shaftesbury sought to develop the concepts of taste, manners, and
politeness in such a way as to provide a moral foundation for British
life that would supplant the outdated and unsatisfactory institutional
supports of church and court. Den Uyl (1998) also explicates
Shaftesbury view of the moralizing effects of the perception of
beauty, pointing to Shaftesbury’s claims that

to be a Virtuoso … is a higher step towards the
becoming a Man of Virtue and good Sense, than the being what in his
Age we call a Scholar (C 1.333)

and

Thus are the Arts and Virtues mutually Friends; and
thus the Science of Virtuoso’s and that of
Virtue it-self, become, in a manner, one and the same. (C
1.338)

4. Politics

4.1 Liberty

The overriding feature of Shaftesbury’s political thinking is
the importance of “Liberty in
general” (C 3.314). In a letter, he said that “the Triumph
of Liberty” is “the hinge and Bottom of all three [volumes
of Characteristicks] and of the whole Work it self” (to
Thomas Micklethwaite, November 24, 1711; see Klein 1994: 124). He
opposes absolutism and tyranny in all forms, arguing vociferously for
free public discourse and toleration of different religious practices.
He tries to show that control by church and court is not
necessary—is in fact counterproductive—to the virtue,
sociability, and politeness of citizens (see Klein 1994: 124–135
and 195–7; Den Uyl 1998: 310; Carey 2006: 126). Klein and
Müller have argued that proper attention to Shaftesbury’s
commitment to liberty and to the weakening of the control of church
and court reveals that Characteristicks is fundamentally a
pro-Whig, anti-Tory tract (Klein 1994: 125; Müller 2013 and
2014a).

Den Uyl argues that Shaftesbury does not think the state can or should
actively promote virtue (Den Uyl 1998: 310–315). Schneewind
makes a similar point when he writes, “The virtuous agent is not
created by the political structure he inhabits. He brings his
character to it” (Schneewind 1998: 309; see also 295–8,
307–9). The best political course, consequently, is for the
state to allow as much liberty as possible, because that is most
likely to give individuals their own opportunity to fashion morally
beautiful characters. Political liberty creates the conditions for
virtue, even if politics cannot promote virtue itself. (For possibly
countervailing evidence see 2.36–7, where Shaftesbury might be
suggesting that proper civic laws can promote virtue).

Müller argues that Shaftesbury’s commitment to liberty is
grounded in his fundamental moral position that virtue consists not
merely of performing certain actions but of acting from the right
motives (Müller 2012 and 2013; see 2.12–15, 32, 38). A
person who benefits others only because she thinks she will be
rewarded if she does so, and will be punished if she does not, does
not possess virtue. Her beneficence is virtuous only if it is
motivated by concern for others, not by selfish considerations
external to others’ welfare. Thus, even if the authorities of
church and court can institute rewards and punishments that may induce
certain kinds of behavior, they will have done nothing to promote
virtue.

Shaftesbury believes that a free exchange of ideas will produce the
same benefits for the intellectual world as a
“Free-Port” produces for commerce, and he
maintains that

Wit will mend upon our hands and Humour will refine
it-self; if we take care not to tamper with it, and bring it under
Constraint. (C 1.64)

Shaftesbury contends as well that the more liberty there is in a
society, the greater its advancements will be in politeness,
understanding, and the arts. “All Politeness is owing to
Liberty”, he writes.

We polish one another, and rub off our Corners and rough Sides by a
sort of amicable Collision. To restrain this, is inevitably
to bring a Rust upon Mens Understandings. ’Tis a destroying of
Civility, Good Breeding and even Charity it-self, under pretence of
maintaining it. (C 1.64–5)

About the arts he writes,

’Tis easy … to apprehend the Advantages of our Britain
[over states with less liberty] and what
effect its establish’d Liberty will produce in every thing which
relates to Art. (C 1.219)

Justness of Thought and Style, Refinement in Manners, good Breeding,
and Politeness of every kind, can come only from the Trial and
Experience of what is best. Let but the Search go freely on, and the
right Measure of every thing will soon be found. (C 1.10)

On this basis Den Uyl attributes to Shaftesbury a belief in the
efficacy of a “marketplace of ideas” to “promote
truth and the reformation of character” (Den Uyl 1998: 314; see
also Darwall 1995: 186).

4.2 Ridicule

The “Test of Ridicule” is one of the most
conspicuous elements of Shaftesbury’s belief in the benefits of
free speech and other forms of liberty (C 1.11). The state should
allow the people to engage in public ridicule because it will
ultimately expose the problems in faulty views and leave unscathed the
strengths of reasonable views. “I am sure the only way to save
Mens Sense, or preserve Wit at all in the World, is to give Liberty to
Wit” (C 1.19), Shaftesbury writes. For “Truth … may
bear all Lights” (C 1.61) and “Nothing is
ridiculous except what is deform’d” (C 1.128). Ridicule
will reveal the ridiculousness of things that really are ridiculous,
but no lasting “Ridicule can lie against Reason” (C 1.11).
Reasonable positions will always be able “to endure a Ridicule
wrongly plac’d” because while people may be
“frighted out of their wits”, they will never “be
laugh’d out of ‘em” (C 1.96). A prime example of
truth and reasonableness being able to withstand ridicule is Socrates,
toward whom ridicule was directed but to whom ridicule did not stick
(C 1.32). The prime example of ridicule undermining what really is
ridiculous is the use of humor and wit to mock fanatical religious
views. Indeed, ridicule is the very best way to deal with unhinged
religious fanatics. For while governmental restriction on those
enraptured by “superstition and enthusiasm” is likely only
to inflame their ardor, witty ridicule (especially in the form of
puppet shows) will work to deprive such views of the opposition they
need to thrive, inevitably leading to their withering in the face of
the reasonable and sober (C 1.18).

Shaftesbury does not, however, propose unlimited free speech. While he
is in favor of a good-humored ridicule, he also thinks there is a
vicious kind of ridicule that does not serve the purposes of
truth—although it is not always clear what principled
distinction he draws between the two (Müller 2013 and Chavez
2008). Even for speech he takes to be a legitimate contribution to
worthwhile discourse it is not clear how expansive a realm of freedom
Shaftesbury has in mind. Sometimes he suggests that completely free
discussion is appropriate only within a club for elites, and not amid
the hurly-burly of the hoi polloi. As he writes in Wit and
Humour,

For you are to remember (my Friend!) that I am writing to you in
defence only of the Liberty of the Club, and of that sort of
Freedom which is taken amongst Gentlemen and
Friends, who know one another perfectly well. And that
’tis natural for me to defend Liberty with this restriction, you
may infer from the very Notion I have of Liberty it-self. (C 1.75)

(For discussion of Shaftesbury’s view of the “club”
and the public, see Carey 2006: 128 and Chavez 2008: 54.)

4.3 Toleration

Shaftesbury’s commitment to liberty extends to toleration of
religious difference (see Carey 2006: 144–5 and Klein 1994:
137). His reasons for this are consonant with his reasons for thinking
the best the state can do with regard to personal morality is create
the conditions for people to achieve virtue on their own. Just as it
is impossible to force people to virtue because virtue essentially
involves acting from reasons other than external reward and
punishment, so too is it impossible to force people to true religious
devotion because true religious devotion essentially involves an
inward feeling of love—“the disinterested Love ofGod” (C 2. 271), the “love of
Godfor his own sake” (C
2.58)—and not merely the kind of external behavior that can be
enforced. Forcing people to love God is no more possible than forcing
someone to romantically love another person (C 1.17–19). In
fact, attempts to force religious uniformity—“a hopeful
Project” Shaftesbury sarcastically calls it—are bound to
failure, likely resulting only in in the further corruption of
people’s characters (C 1.19).

But a new sort of Policy, which extends it-self to another World, and
considers the future Lives and Happiness of Men rather than the
present, has made us leap the Bounds of natural Humanity; and out of a
supernatural Charity, has taught us the way of plaguing one another
most devoutly. It has rais’d an Antipathy which no temporal
Interest cou’d ever do; and entail’d upon us a mutual
Hatred to all Eternity. (C 1.17)

Restrictions on religious practices are likely to be as
counterproductive as attempts to enforce virtue. Shaftesbury is not,
however, opposed to state-established religion. “People
shou’d have a Publick Leading in Religion”, he
writes.

For to deny the Magistrate a Worship, or take away a National Church,
is as mere Enthusiasm as the Notion which sets up Persecution. For why
shou’d there not be publick Walks, as well as private Gardens?
(C 1.17)

4.4 Criticism of Social Contract Theory

Shaftesbury rejects Hobbesian social contract theory. He argues that
the selfish beings Hobbes described in his state of nature bear no
resemblance to humans as they actually are. Humans are naturally
sociable. Society is humankind’s natural condition.

In short, if Generation be natural, if natural Affection and
the Care and Nurture of the Offspring be natural, Things
standing as they do with Man, and the Creature being of that Form and
Constitution he now is; it follows, “That Society must be also
natural to him; And “That out of Society and Community he never did, nor ever can subsist”. (C 2.318–19)

According to
Shaftesbury, there is a contradiction between Hobbes’s
description of an amoral state of nature and his claim to establish a
duty to obey the laws of society. If there had been no duty to keep
one’s promises in the state of nature, then the original
contract could not have created a duty. And if the original contract
did create such a duty, then there must have been a duty to keep
one’s promises even in the state of nature (C 1.103–11,
1.72–76, 2.310–321).

5. Innate Ideas

Shaftesbury resists Locke’s attack on innate ideas, particularly
as it applies to morality. Shaftesbury maintains that the “main
scope and principal end” of Characteristicks is
“to assert the Reality of a Beauty and
Charm in moral as well as
natural Subjects” (C 3.303), and he believes that
Locke’s rejection of innate ideas undermines that moral reality
(see Carey 2006: 98–99). Locke’s rejection of innate
ideas, as Shaftesbury sees it, implies that our moral ideas must be
nothing but the result of custom and instruction, and that they are
therefore relative to the contingent events of each person’s own
society and upbringing. But morality, if it exists, must be based in a
uniform nature. Morality is natural or it is nothing at all. And
Locke’s rejection of innate ideas implies that morality is not
natural.

Because the word ‘innate’ is ambiguous and controversial,
Shaftesbury chooses to affirm the naturalness of morality in other
terms (C 2.411–12). “Implanted” is a word he uses
often, contending that a “sense of Right and Wrong” (C
2.60), a “Principle of Virtue” (C 2.38), and
“original ideas of goodness” (C 1.33) are
implanted in every human. He also speaks of our
“Pre-conceptions, or Pre-sensations” of morality, which
are ideas, principles, and affections that possess moral content but
do not originate in experience (C 2.412–3; see also 2.307;
2.25–6). Another word he uses to express his opposition to
Locke’s anti-nativism is ‘anticipation,’ as when he
writes,

[W]e cannot resist our natural Anticipation in behalf of Nature;
according to whose suppos’d
Standard we perpetually approve and disapprove, and to whom
in all natural Appearances, all moral Actions (whatever we
contemplate, whatever we have in debate) we inevitably appeal. (C
3.214; see also 2.45, 2.412; 2.420; 3.214)

His point here is that we base our moral judgments on a standard that
we recognize prior to (or in anticipation of) any of our particular
experiences. Similarly, he says that we have a
“Prepossession of the Mind, in favour of this moral
Distinction” (C 2.44). The distinction that is important to
Shaftesbury is between aspects of human life that are based in
instincts or natural tendencies, and aspects that result from
artifice, culture, and instruction (C 2.411). Shaftesbury’s main
contention is that many morally significant aspects of human life fall
in into the first category rather than the second. We naturally care
for children. We naturally seek company and prefer sociability to
solitariness. We naturally form groups bound by “Love of a
common City, Community, or Country” (C 2.308–9). We
naturally find some types of conduct beautiful and virtuous, and
others not so.

But while Shaftesbury claims that all humans naturally (or
instinctively) possess (or are imprinted with) a sense of right and
wrong (a principle of virtue, original ideas of goodness), he also
believes that a great deal of cultivation and refinement is necessary
in order to develop correct and proper judgment (C 1.190–1).
Virtue and good taste may be natural, but it turns out that a proper
education is needed for most people to achieve them. How can
Shaftesbury both insist on the naturalness of morality and beauty, and
contend for the need of intensive critical moral and aesthetic
reflection? Carey has argued that Shaftesbury believes this apparent
problem can be dissolved by the Stoic concept of prolepsis
(Carey 2006: 110–116). Prolepses are notions that do “not
depend on or derive from instruction or experience” (Carey 2006:
112). But prolepses are merely mental anticipations, not fully formed
concepts—they are pre–conceptions—and as
such they can be poorly developed and misapplied. To give prolepses
their most complete form and to apply them properly, practice and
cultivation are necessary. Shaftesbury can thus hold that ethics
requires the “right application of the Affections” (C
2.35), and he can attribute mistaken ethical judgments to a
“Defect in the application of that unavoidable
Impression and first natural Rule of Honesty and
Worth” (C 3.303–4).

6. Religion

6.1 Anti-voluntarism

Central to Shaftesbury’s religious views is a rejection of the
voluntarist claim that morality is determined by divine will. If
God’s will determined morality, Shaftesbury argues, it would be
meaningless to praise God for being moral.

For whoever thinks there is a God, and
pretends formally to believe that he is just and
good, must suppose that there is independently such a thing
as Justice and Injustice, Truth and
Falshood, Right and Wrong; according to
which he pronounces that God is just, righteous, and
true. (C 2.49–50)

Anyone who believes it is meaningful to love God because of
God’s virtue must believe that morality is prior to God’s
will.

Against the voluntarists, Shaftesbury maintains that morality is
“eternal” and “immutable” (C 2.36), and that
God’s will is determined by it. As Theocles (of The
Moralists) says of the position advanced by the author of the
Inquiry,

[I]n respect of Virtue, what you lately
call’d a Realist; he endeavours to shew, “That it
is really something in it-self, and in the nature of Things:
not arbitrary or factitious, (if I may so speak) not
constituted from without, or dependent on Custom,
Fancy, or Will; not even on the Supreme
Will it-self, which can no-way govern it: but being
necessarily good, is govern’d by it, and ever uniform
with it”. (C 2.267)

There are certain things we know to be necessarily true, such as that
a contradiction cannot hold and that it must be wrong to punish one
person for a different person’s wrongdoing. But voluntarism has
the contrary—and thus absurd—implications.

If the mere Will, Decree, or Law of God be
said absolutely to constitute Right and Wrong, then
are these latter words of no significancy at all. For thus if each
part of a Contradiction were affirm’d for Truth by the supreme
Power, they wou’d consequently become true. Thus if one
Person were decreed to suffer for another’s fault, the Sentence
wou’d be just and equitable. And thus, in the
same manner, if arbitrarily, and without reason, some Beings were
destin’d to endure perpetual Ill, and others as constantly to
enjoy Good; this also wou’d pass under the same Denomination.
But to say of any thing that it is just or unjust,
on such a foundation as this, is to say nothing, or to speak without a
meaning (C 2.50)

Evident here is Shaftesbury’s belief that our certainty about
some things (including our certainty that the conduct supralapsarian
Calvinists attribute to God is wrong) is sufficient basis for the
rejection of all theologies that place God’s will prior to
morality. In passages such as this, Shaftesbury manifests a profound
affinity (if not identity) with the Cambridge Platonists (see Cassirer
1953: 159–202; Rivers 2000a: 88; Gill 2006: 12–29 and
77–82).

Shaftesbury also argues that belief in voluntarism has significantly
deleterious moral effects. If you believe certain actions are wrong
only because God arbitrarily commands you not to perform them, then
your overwhelming reason for not performing those actions will be the
self-interested desire to avoid God’s punishment. But if that
self-interested desire becomes your overwhelming motivation, it will
crowd out and eventually destroy the other-loving motives that are
essential to your own virtue and happiness (C 2.55–6,
2.58–9; see also 1.97, 2.48–50, 2.267).

Shaftesbury’s own position on religious belief has negative and
positive aspects. The negative aspect is opposition to belief based on
revelation. The positive aspect is affirmation of a perfectly good God
based on observation of the natural order.

Shaftesbury argues against reliance on revelation in the form of
miracles, of scripture, and of (certain types of) enthusiastic
experiences.

Shaftesbury holds that the occurrence of miracles would contradict
rather than support proper theological belief. The essential feature
of the observable world on which proper theological belief is based is
its order, the operation of myriad different systems
according to elegant and harmonious natural laws. But a miracle is an
occurrence that violates that order, something defined as a
contradiction of natural law. As such, a miracle would undermine
belief in a Creator who works by “just and uniform” laws
(C 2.334). A miracle would evince not a single great and good God but
“either the Chaos and Atoms of the Atheists,
or the Magick and
Daemons of the Polytheists” (C
2.335–6). As Theocles says in The Moralists to a
character who has made a plea for miracles:

For whilst you are labouring to unhinge Nature; whilst you are
searching Heaven and Earth for Prodigys, and studying how to
miraculize every thing; you bring Confusion on the World, you
break its Uniformity, and destroy that admirable Simplicity of Order,
from whence the One infinite and perfect
Principle is known. (C 2.335)

Even if a miracle could establish the existence of a being with
unusual power, it would not prove that such a being had the qualities
of perfect goodness we should rightly attribute to God.

For what tho innumerable Miracles from every part
assail’d the Sense, and gave the trembling Soul no respite? What
tho the Sky shou’d suddenly open, and all kinds of Prodigys
appear, Voices be heard, or Characters read? What wou’d this
evince more than “That there were certainPowers
cou’d do all this?” But
“WhatPowers; Whether
One, or more; Whether Superior, or
Subaltern; Mortal, or Immortal;
Wise, or Foolish; Just, or Unjust;
Good, or Bad”: this wou’d still remain a
Mystery; as wou’d the true Intention, the Infallibility or
Certainty of whatever thesePowers
asserted (C 2.334)

Belief in beings with unusual powers is not the same thing as true
theism, which is belief in a perfectly good—perfectly
orderly—God (C 2.6).

Shaftesbury raises multiple objections to religious views that claim
to be based solely on the revealed word of scripture. It is claimed
that those who write scripture are divinely inspired. But even if they
are divinely inspired, they must still write in human language. And
the translation from divine inspiration to human language opens up
space for interpretation and criticism.

’Tis indeed no small Absurdity, to assert a Work or Treatise,
written in human Language, to be above human
Criticism, or Censure. For if the Art of Writing be from
the grammatical Rules of human Invention and Determination; if even
these Rules are form’d on casual Practice and various Use: there
can be no Scripture but what must of necessity be subject to
the Reader’s narrow Scrutiny and strict Judgment; unless a
Language and Grammar, different from any of human Structure, were
deliver’d down from Heaven, and miraculously accommodated to
human Service and Capacity. (C 3.229)

At least as problematic for the claim to base religion entirely on
scripture is the great diversity of texts for which claims of divine
inspiration have been made. There have been many different versions of
the scriptural stories through the centuries. And human
decisions—decisions that can be examined, explained, critiqued,
questioned—have led to some texts being deemed canonical,
complete, and perfect and others apocryphal, partial, inaccurate. As
Carey puts Shaftesbury’s point,

How can we establish the text itself, distinguishing the apocryphal
from the canonical corpus of writings, given the range of manuscripts,
transcripts, copies, and textual traditions associated with different
sects, each of which adopts an alternative version when it comes to
power? (Carey 2006: 144)

Even if we can all agree on one text, moreover, we must still apply it
to our own lives in order to determine how to live according to its
teachings. And such application once again opens up a space that can
be filled only by interpretation. Perhaps we will accept one
person’s interpretation above all others, but then we are basing
our religion on that person’s judgment and not on scripture
alone.

If we follow any OneTranslation, or
any One Man’s Commentary, what
Rule or Direction shall we have, by which to chuse that One
aright? (C 3.324)

Shaftesbury’s point is not that scripture should be ignored. It
is that any use anyone ever makes of scripture will necessarily
involve “his own Discernment, and
Understanding”—either one’s own judgment of which
text to privilege and how best to interpret it, or one’s own
judgment that somebody else’s judgment about those things is
best (C 3.72). Shaftesbury maintains, as well, that the best
interpretations will be those that are deeply informed by
extra-scriptural knowledge of the history, tradition, and
language—“collateral Testimony of other antient Records,
Historians, and foreign Authors”—of the times in which
scriptural texts were first composed and complied (C 3.236). To truly
understand scripture, we must approach it the way we would approach
any other ancient text. The result will be

a nicely critical Historical Faith, subject to various
Speculations, and a thousand different Criticisms of
Languages and Literature. (C 3.72)

Such criticism, far from undermining respect for the word of God, is
“necessary to the Preservation and Purity of Scripture” (C
3.316).

Shaftesbury also opposes religion that purports to be based entirely
on direct revelation of an enthusiastic experience. Enthusiasts (or,
rather, the kinds of enthusiasts Shaftesbury opposes; see below) are
those who base their religious views on what they claim to be their
immediate spiritual experiences of God. Such experiences are
passionate, emotional, non-rational. And while Shaftesbury does not
deny that true contemplation of the divine has an emotional component,
he argues that we cannot determine merely from the character of a
passionate experience itself whether it is the result of divine
inspiration or human distemper. A single individual in a cave can make
noises that, because of echoing and darkness, cause a group of people
to feel great fear and thus give them to believe they are under threat
from a huge gang of monsters. Their feeling of fear—their
panic—is certainly real, but that feeling does not on its own
constitute proof of the belief about what caused it. In the same way,
a group of people can experience some powerful emotion that they
attribute to the experience of God, but the power of the emotion
itself is no proof of the divine cause. For

there are many Panicks in Mankind, besides merely that of
Fear. And thus is Religion also Panick; when Enthusiasm of
any kind gets up. (C 1.16)

Shaftesbury thus describes enthusiastic experiences as internal
“commotions” that may be one of

those Delusions which come arm’d with the specious Pretext of
moral Certainty, and Matter of Fact. (C 1.44)

Enthusiasm is wonderfully powerful and
extensive … [and] … it is a matter of nice Judgment, and
the hardest thing in the world to know fully and distinctly…
Nor can Divine Inspiration, by its outward Marks, be easily
distinguish’d from it. For Inspiration is a real
feeling of the Divine Presence, and Enthusiasm a false one.
But the Passion they raise is much alike. (C 1.52–53)

Scary noises in a dark cave can produce the same feeling of fear,
whether they are caused by many monsters or one trickster. The feeling
itself does not constitute proof that the feeler’s belief about
the cause is correct.

6.3 Natural Religion and the Argument from Design

The central feature of the positive aspect of Shaftesbury’s
religion is belief in a perfectly good God based on an argument from
design. (At 2.364–5, he suggests that it is possible to give an
a priori argument for the existence of God as well). Proper attention
to the magnificent order of natural phenomena, Shaftesbury argues,
leads inevitably to the conclusion that the world was created by a
perfect being. If we found a perfectly designed piece of architecture
on a desert island, we would conclude that a mind had formed it even
if we could see no intelligent being in the area. Just so, Shaftesbury
argues, we must conclude that a mind has formed the world as a whole,
even though such a mind is not present to our senses. Shaftesbury
develops this argument most fully in The Moralists, in which
Theocles convinces Philocles that perfect theism follows from an
understanding of nature as a whole (C 2.284–5, 2.340–393).
Everything is “fitted and join’d” together, Theocles
contends, each contributing to the “Order, Union, and Coherence
of the Whole” (C 2.287). “All we can see either
of the Heavens or Earth, demonstrates Order and Perfection” (C
2.291). “All things in this world are united” in
a “universal system” (C 2.287). And

having recogniz’d this uniform consistent fabric, and
own’d the Universal System, we must of consequence
acknowledg a universal Mind. (C 2.290)

Shaftesbury contends that such considerations—the argument from
design—constitute a rational basis for theism. They provide
“abundant Proof, capable of convincing any fair and just
Contemplator” (C 2.288).

6.4 Justified Enthusiasm

Shaftesbury also insists, however, that essential to true religion is
a passionate love for the Divine and its creation. Shaftesbury’s
religion consists not merely of a calm belief in a creator-God but
also of a passionate “Admiration” of the
world’s “Majesty or Graudure”, of
something that “captivates the Heart” (C 3.31–2).
Indeed, in what may seem like a surprising twist, Shaftesbury says
that in fact the truly religious frame of mind, because it reaches
beyond calm understanding, is a kind of enthusiasm. The writer of
A Letter concerning Enthusiasm, after ridiculing enthusiasts
throughout, eventually claims to have “justify’d Enthusiasm,
and own’d the Word” and
signs off as “your Enthusiastick Friend” (C 1.55;
see also 2.206–10, 368–376, 218–9, 124, 220, 394;
3.22, 33). It seems that Shaftesbury wants to develop a religious view
that is neither entirely passionate (like the fanatics he ridicules in
A Letter) nor entirely rational (like the Deists he was
sometimes associated with). This raises the question of how the
passionate and rational elements of Shaftesbury’s religion fit
together. Müller and Grean offer two different answers.

Müller argues that for Shaftesbury the passionate element is
necessary because rationality cannot fully establish the existence of
a perfectly good God. Reason alone cannot get us all the way to
perfect theism. The extra distance can be traversed only by an
emotional aesthetic response to the beauty of creation. Müller
writes,

In contemplating the beauty of nature, fancy transcends the limits of
the human mind and ascends into the infinite, imagining the harmonious
concatenation of causes. Theocles’ sublime meditations do not
attempt to produce logically sound arguments; they are allegorical
verbal paintings of the deity’s creation. The order of the
divine cosmos, its inherent goodness, does not lend itself to strict
philosophical investigation so that its “Mysterious
Beauty” (C 2.393) cannot be rationally understood by
human beings. (Müller 2010: 224)

There are “secret truths of divine creation” that we can
appreciate only through non-rational means (Müller 2010: 224).
Müller argues for this interpretation through an account of
Shaftesbury’s theodicy, i.e., his response to the seeming evils
in a world supposedly created by a perfectly good, omnipotent God.
According to Müller, Shaftesbury contends that belief in such a
God implies that no real evil can truly exists. All evil is merely
apparent. Everything in the world is actually entirely good. But this
position cannot be established rationally. Indeed, according to
Müller, this position is “anti-rational” (Müller
2010: 227). We can only come to accept it through an emotional
aesthetic response—an imaginative “Conceit of something
majestick” (C 3.30), an “Extasy” (C
1.36)—to the beauty of the world.

Grean’s reading, in contrast, takes Shaftesbury to advance a
more thoroughly rational basis for perfect theism (Grean 1967:
19–36). On Grean’s interpretation, an enthusiastic passion
is “fair and plausible” only if it is tethered to a
thoroughly rational theological understanding, not if it goes beyond
such an understanding. Such a reading emphasizes statements such as
the following from Philocles:

Nor cou’d God witness for himself, or assert his Being
any other way to Men, than “By revealing himself to their
Reason, appealing to their Judgment, and submitting
his Ways to their Censure, and cool
Deliberation” (C 2.333).

Theocles also seems to eschew the need for any non-rational means to
theism when he says that observation provides “abundant Proof,
capable of convincing any fair and just Contemplator, of the Works of
Nature” (C 2.288). In addition, Shaftesbury condemns the idea
that a person should ever believe anything not supported by “an
impartial Use of his Reason” or that is “too hard for his
Understanding” (C 1.35). Contemplation of the order of things is
“the only means which cou’d establish the sound
Belief of a Deity” (C 2.333). Without fully rational
belief, “Theology must have no Foundation at all” (C
2.269).

Shaftesbury does believe that true theism involves an emotional
response—that a truly religious frame of mind includes something
more than simply a calm, rational belief in Deity (at which the Deists
might have been satisfied to stop). But on Grean’s
interpretation, that additional emotional element is added to rational
belief, not something that is needed to carry us to a belief that
reason alone cannot reach. The model for this kind of emotional
element is the profound aesthetic pleasure that a mathematician may
experience upon coming to understand an elegant proof, or that a
biologist may experience upon coming to understand the perfect
organization of a complex set of features of an organism or ecosystem
(C 2.17 and 2.43). The profound aesthetic pleasure of the
mathematician and the biologist does not go beyond understanding but,
rather, is entirely posterior to, or dependent upon it (C
2.374–5).

It is true—as Müller points out in his discussion of
theodicy—that Shaftesbury thinks there are certain things that
appear to us to be bad or evil, things that we cannot understand how
to reconcile with a perfectly good and all-powerful God. But there is
in Shaftesbury at least the suggestion of a rational argument for the
conclusion that even those things are actually for the best (C
2.288–92, 2.363–5). There are numerous features of the
world whose purpose we have not initially understood. Over time,
however, we have come to see the purpose that many of those things
serve, achieving a rational realization that what had initially seemed
bad or evil is in actuality entirely to the good. But since we have
had so many of these experiences in the past—of initially not
understanding a thing and its appearing to us to be bad or evil, and
of then coming to understand it and realizing that it is in fact
good—it is reasonable to conclude that those things we currently
do not understand and that appear to us as evil are also actually for
the best. Imagine you know a very brilliant person. In the past she
has done things you initially did not understand the rationale for at
all. But in time you eventually came to see that those things were
perfectly planned and executed, and you now realize that they were
exactly the right things to have done (even if you hadn’t been
able to see that initially). Now imagine that this person does
something in the present that you do not understand the rationale for.
Your past experience gives you reasonable grounds for trusting that in
fact she has perfect justification for what she is doing—that
her actions really are for the best, even if you currently cannot see
the reasons for them. Given the finiteness of our minds and the
infiniteness of God’s, it is only to be expected that God acts
in certain ways we cannot understand. But in the past we have had so
many experiences of examining natural objects we initially did not
understand and coming to see the harmonious workings of all their
wondrous mechanisms, it is reasonable to believe that those things we
currently do not understand are in fact for the best. As Shaftesbury
puts it,

Now, in this mighty Union, if there be such
Relations of Parts one to another as are not easily discover’d;
if on this account the End and Use of Things does not every-where
appear, there is no wonder; since ’tis no more indeed than what
must happen of necessity: Nor cou’d supreme Wisdom have
otherwise order’d it. For in an Infinity of Things thus
relative, a Mind which sees not infinitely, can see nothing
fully. (C 2.288)

6.5 Virtue and Belief in God

Let us now turn to another significant feature of Shaftesbury’s
religious views, which is his position on the relationship between
virtue and belief in God. This is the topic with which Shaftesbury
begins the Inquiry, telling us that his goal is

to inquire what Honesty or Virtue is,
consider’d by it-self; and in what manner it is influenc’d
by Religion: how far Religion necessarily implies
Virtue; and whether it be a true Saying, That ‘it
is impossible for an Atheist to be virtuous, or share any real degree
of Honesty, orMerit. (C 2.7)

It is in the context of addressing this question that Shaftesbury
develops his ideas of the moral sense—i.e., his view that within
every human is the means to understand morality and act in accord with
it—and the conclusion he draws from this is that one’s
capacity to realize virtue is independent of one’s religious
belief. Our moral sense naturally leads us to virtue (C 2.16–18
and 25–6), and atheism does nothing at all to damage that
natural tendency (C 2.27). Shaftesbury thus denies “that it
is impossible for an Atheist to be virtuous,” contending
instead that some

who have paid little regard to Religion, and been consider’d as
mere Atheists, have yet been observ’d to
practice the Rules of Morality, and act in many Cases with
such good Meaning and Affection towards Mankind, as might seem to
force an Acknowledgment of their being virtuous (C 2.4)

Rivers has suggested that establishing the independence of religion
and morality is one the most important aspects of, and perhaps the
primary motivation for, Shaftesbury’s development of the moral
sense (Rivers 2000a).

Shaftesbury does believe, however, that religious belief can affect
one’s moral sense and one’s motivation to be moral. Belief
in a perfectly good God promotes virtue in a number of ways. For

nothing can more highly contribute to the fixing of right
Apprehensions, and a sound Judgment of Sense of Right and Wrong, than
to believe a God who is ever, and on all accounts, represented such as
to be actually a true Model and Example of the most exact Justice, and
highest Goodness and Worth. (C 2.51)

And when God is represented as having

a Concern for the good of All, and an Affection of
Benevolence and Love towards the Whole; such an Example must
undoubtedly serve (…) to raise and increase the Affection
towards Virtue. (C 2.56)

Shaftesbury also says that belief in a perfect God increases
one’s motivation to be moral because one will have a strong wish
to please the Supreme Being and because one will be better able to
withstand misfortune and hardship, which are important respects in
which theism conduces to virtue in a way atheism does not (C
2.56–77). In contrast, belief in an immoral God, which
Shaftesbury calls ‘daemonism,’ will have deleterious
effects, promoting vice at the expense of virtue. For religious zeal
based on belief in a capricious and violent god will promote cruelty
and barbarity (C 2.13; 2.35–6; 2.47–49).

[W]here a real Devotion and hearty Worship is paid to a supreme Being,
who in his History or Character is represented otherwise than as
really and truly just and good; there must ensure a Loss of Rectitude,
a Disturbance of Thought, and a Corruption of Temper and manners the
Believer. His Honesty will, of necessity, be supplanted by his Zeal,
whilst he is thus unnaturally influenc’d, and render’d
thus immorally devout. (C 2.50–51)

“Religion”, Shaftesbury concludes,
“is capable of doing great Good, or Harm” to one’s
moral character, while atheism does not have an effect “in
either way” (C 2.51).

Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times

Recent editions:

Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times,
edited and with an introduction by Philip Ayers (in two volumes),
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. This edition includes A
Notion of the Historical Draught or Tablature of the Judgment of
Hercules and A Letter concerning Design.

Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, edited
and with an introduction by Laurence E. Klein (in one volume),
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

–––, 2012, “Rewriting the Divine Right
Theory for the Whigs: The Political Implications of
Shaftesbury’s Attack on the Doctrine of Futurity in his
Characteristicks” in Great Expectations: Futurity
in the Long Eighteenth Century, Mascha Hansen and Jürgen
Klein (eds), Frankfurt: Peter Lang: 67–88.

–––, 2013, “Mapping a Tory’s
‘prostitute Pen and Tongue’: Satire, Criticism, and the
Political Dimension of Shaftesbury’s Aversion to Swift”,
in “The first wit of the age”: Essays on Swift and his
Contemporaries in Honour of Hermann J. Real, Mascha Hansen,
Kirsten Juhas, and Patrick Müller (eds), Frankfurt: Peter Lang,
pp. 297–314.

–––, 2014a, “Hobbes, Locke and the
Consequences: Shaftesbury’s Moral Sense and Political Agitation
in Early Eighteenth-Century England”, Journal for Eighteenth
Century Studies, 37: 315–330.

Müller, Patrick (ed.), 2014b, New Ages, New Opinions:
Shaftesbury in his World and Today, Frankfurt: Peter Lang.